Vespa

Creation

Piaggio “Vespa” Italian is launched in 1946, six months after Fuji “Rabbit” Japanese woman who can be regarded as the modern first motor scooter (the English term “scooter” means “child's scooter” - to see the article on the English wikipedia -). At that time, the Piaggio company Italian, founded in 1884, continues to manufacture planes - its principal activity during the war - under its own name. Enrico Piaggio, the son of the founder of the group, decides to develop a two-wheeled vehicle to find a new outlet with its factory because, the shortly after the war, the construction of plane is an activity prohibited in Italy. The industrialist asks for one his aeronautical engineers to create a means of modern and economic transport, being able to be led as well by men as by women, and not dirtying clothing (contrary to the motor bike). A first model is created, the Paperino , but not very convincing. A new project is entrusted to the engineer Corradino D' Ascanio, who ends to the production of the Vespa in 1946.

The first Vespa are manufactured with Pontedera in Italy and are popular in the Années 1950 and 1960. The line is always exploited at the beginning of XXIe century.

The first Scooter has singular characteristics which distinguish it from the others Motocyclette S. the wheels are fixed laterally (as for the landing gears of the planes, an obvious trace of the “aeronautical” origin of the Vespa); the fork becomes a simple arm, which facilitates in particular the change of the tire tube and the tire. The engine is protected by the hull and transmits rotation to the aft wheel by a tree, and releases a place for the feet with before (what makes it possible to protect the legs by a careenage), the wing postpones opposite allows the installation of a small trunk or the installation of a spare wheel.

Characteristic of the first model :

weight: 60 kg;
shifting of speed to the handle;
driving two-stroke of 98 cm ³;
maximum speed: 55 km/h.

World radiation

Launched in 1946, the Vespa very quickly arouses an immense interest in the whole world. In 1953, the network counts 10 000 sales outlets throughout the world, including in Asia and America. In 1950, the Vespa is built in Germany, then with the the United Kingdom and in France. In Spain, the production begins in 1953 with Madrid. Factories are built in India (with Bombay) and with the Brésil. The mark is also established with the the United States.

With final, the Vespa will be built in thirteen countries and will be marketed in a hundred and fourteen, of which the Australia, the South Africa, the Iran and the China.

In the whole world, the Vespa became the typically Italian product, synonymous with freedom, mobility and user-friendliness.

Voyages, sports and other records

Giancarlo Tironi, an Italian student, reached the Arctic Circle.
the Argentinian Carlos Velez cross-piece the the Andes of Buenos Aires to Santiago of Chile.
Roberto Patrignani goes Milan to Tokyo.
Soren Nielsen goes to the Greenland.
James P. Owen of the the United States to the Ground of Fire.
Australian Geoff Dean makes the round the world tour.
Pierre Dellière, sergeant in the French air force, reached Saigon into fifty and one days at the beginning of Paris.
Switzerland Giuseppe Morandi traverses 6 000 km, of which a majority in the desert.
Ennio Carrega carries out the return ticket Genoa - Lapland in twelve days.
Two Danish journalists go until Bombay.
more recently, of April 2006 in September 2007, the writer and journalist Giorgio Bettinelli, has the project to make a turn of China in the Vespa, more 60 000 kilometers to bring back reports and photographs (see its blog).
1980: participation of three Vespa in the rally Paris-Dakar (but all gave up).

(Source: bleated It Storia of the Vespa , Claire Steinlen)

History of the Vespa in some dates

1946 : first Vespa
the Fifties and Sixties: immense success of the Vespa, immortalized in a hundred films of which Roman Holidays and the Dolce vita
Years 1970: sales in lose speed.
1988: ten million Vespa sold in the world since its creation
Years 1990: new rise of the scooter.
1996: launching of a Vespa equipped with an engine four-stroke for the fiftieth anniversary of the mark
2006: after sixty years, sixteen million sold specimens
2007: end of the sale and manufacture in Europe of the model headlight, Vespa PX, following the EU law on the too polluting two-stroke engines

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